For this edition of EMPREMTA festival internacional de performance we move the artistic proposals towards the matter and its personal and social connotations.

Each artist works with a specific material, offering different and diverse perspectives that are born from her/his personal approach to it.The matter speaks to and with the bodies. For each day, one material. From this materiality each artist will be immersed in it through her/his individual journey and particular enquiry. Two artistic proposals will be united by a same material, on a same day and in a same space.

At the space of industrial Catalonia, MATERIC.ORG works as the matrix of these proposals. Located in the neighbourhood of Sta. Eulàlia (L’Hospitalet de Llobregat), the industrial and labour engine surrounding Barcelona, this environment offers itself as a common thread for each day, proposal, and material.

DECOLONIAL ACTIONS are presented as a starting point for a communal discussion on the current topics of everyday forms of colonialism.​Three performance artists from diverse backgrounds share their personal views on (post)modern colonialism through the presentation of one of their performance works to be followed by an open discussion.

The actions presented and discussed:-(De) Colonial Reconquista, by Marina Barsy Janer, 2014, San Juan, Puerto Rico.-Llast Colonial, by Isil Sol Vil, 2014, Barcelona, Spain.-Quebec – Querétaro: Acá como allá, todas somos hijas del maíz , by Christine Brault, 2015, Querétaro, Mexico.Joining the discussion and process: Laura Burns and Leo Kay.Introduction to Decolonial Actions:Decoloniality understands the colonial to be not only part of our past but engrained in our modern psyches, bodies, lands, interrelations, and notions of time and space. Furthermore it conceives the colonial to be intrinsic to modernity. The modern Self is however, a unique and limited perspective born out of a specific context. Cartesian outdated cogito ergo sum (‘I think, therefore I am’) is not only problematic due to its mind-body divide, but also, we ask: Who is this thinking Self? This Self excludes women, blacks, Indigenous, Muslims, and so forth. . .

Triggering questions:-Are there really two sides to colonialism? (colonised and coloniser) May we break this duality? Is breaking it part of the decolonial process or does it silence once again the oppressed?-How do we think about decolonial actions and their relation to the entanglements of global life of which we are all part?-How does one speak from one’s position, sharing decolonial practices yet with an awareness to avoid repeated violent appropriations?-How do we think outside of the associations of certain terms that carry the baggage of their colonial meanings with them? -What are the things we are engaged with, that are culturally specific to our own practices and to decolonial acts (e.g .practices that attend to the immaterial in the material, or the blurry line therein, facilitating body-mind knowledge, etc)?

Reflections triggered by the eventGiving Ritual importance is itself a radical act. By imbuing each moment of performed, ritualized, expression with a meaning that goes far beyond proof driven reason, you begin a process of detachment from imposed rationalism, opening the experience to the possibility of the unknown.-Leo KayWe must continuously engage in an ongoing river of epistemic vigilance to encounter together in the flow of this communal ocean. This is an ongoing (life) process where uniting to voice-embody the diverse and heterogeneous experiences is already a political step into decolonisation.-Marina Barsy JanerCan we truly repair any harm that has been done? What can be done to reclaim -- regain territory as the Indian people’s primary rights in terms of decision-making as to bring better CARE -- we cannot REPAIR -- to stop the constant destruction. I believe what happened during the discussion among all of us is a seed to reflect on RESPECT at the base of everything… -Christine BraultHow to decolonise when you are the coloniser, or form part of the colonisation process? Colonialism is not a thing of the past, it's still latent, permanent, and it's more alive than ever. It's our foundation, our tap water, our light, our heat, our clothes, EVERYTHING that surrounds us and that we own is part of this. Closing this period becomes a necessary action.-Isil So VilWhen a participant asked a question about whether the actions were really doing anything, or whether they were just a way of relieving colonial guilt, I really thought about this. I think it has something to do with language, amongst other things. Christine's act of voicing re-membering women who have not been acknowledged or remembered, let alone found or given justice, is not only a symbolic act; I think it really shifts the energetic space where these geopolitical relationships also reside - that language and intention has the capacity to do this, is a perspective that itself shifts a colonial viewpoint.-Laura Burns

MIND THE GAP: performative-symposium explores performance art tendencies through the presentation and study of performance art from Puerto Rico, featuring live and virtual performances by three artists, discussion by speakers, and round table discussion with curators, artists and academics. ​The curatorial endeavour aims to co-create the tension and possible bridging of three main gaps:

First to be stressed is the gap in the academicised notion of performance art in opposition to its practice. In putting this idea of divergent practices (the academic-artistic dichotomy) in tension, the concept of language emerged as a form of action and the performance act as a form of language, signaled under the framework of the subtitle ‘performative-symposium’.

Furthermore, the event operates within an existing gap of intercultural curating by offering a first exposure to Puerto Rican performance art (from the ‘Island’, not from the Puerto Rican diaspora) in a U.K. setting, as well as staging the event simultaneously both in the U.K. (firstsite) and in Puerto Rico (MAC).

Additionally, the distance between audience and presented actions (academic/artistic works) is explored, particularly in the structural context of performance art.--

A collaboration with the Essex Collection of Art from Latin America (ESCALA), the Centre for Curatorial Studies of the University of Essex and the support of the Puerto Rico Museum of Contemporary Art.